As Caleb Followill stepped up to the microphone at War Memorial Auditorium Saturday night, he asked a room filled with revelers to help sing along on the next number.

"It's been a long day," he explained.

Followill certainly had a full plate this weekend. The frontman for Nashville rock group Kings of Leon was in the thick of Music City Eats, a three-day food and music festival he'd dreamt up with brother and bandmate Nathan Followill.

Saturday night was where the music came in: for "Petty Fest Nashville," a salute to the songs of Tom Petty - and a genre-blending jam session that showed off the modern, multifaceted Music City.

Nashville may seem to host a new all-star concert every week, but in some ways, "Petty Fest" felt like a first, showing off a newly minted "It City" where several breeds of musicians - from arena rockers to country stars, award-winning songsmiths and club veterans - could team up on one stage for a night of fast-and-loose covers.

The concert is part of the inaugural Music City Eats: Nashville Food, Wine & Spirits Festival, slated for Sept. 21-22. Passes for the festival start at $275, but attendees must purchase an "All-In" pass ($500) to attend Petty Fest Nashville.

LOS ANGELES — A group led by Sony Corp. said Friday it has purchased Britain’s EMI Music Publishing for $2.2 billion from Citigroup, creating the world’s largest music copyrights company with a catalog that includes hits from Motown, The Beatles, Jay-Z and Norah Jones.

Now all that remains of the storied British label group is its recorded music division, which Vivendi’s Universal Music Group has offered to buy for $1.9 billion. That deal is being looked at by European and U.S. regulators. If they approve some time later this year, the world’s major music companies will be reduced from four to three.

Recorded music companies have argued that they need to combine resources to survive in an industry crippled by piracy, as the legitimate digital distribution of music is still in its infancy around the globe.Continue reading →

Holly Williams, granddaughter of Hank Williams, holds a notebook of her grandfather's song lyrics as she stands by his portrait at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Over the years, Holly Williams never felt much of a connection to her grandfather. So when she slipped on a pair of white gloves and lifted one of Hank Williams' old spiral-bound notebooks to inspect its pages full of careful cursive script recently at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, she was a little bit startled to feel a deep visceral reaction.

"Just amazement," she said a few minutes later. "Just shock and awe."

Touching the notebooks left her with a feeling of "just how prolific he was."

"I'm 30," she said. "It makes me go, 'God, I sure haven't got much done.' ... He died at 29 and he wrote these songs."

Williams' notebooks not only inspired his granddaughter, but an all-star cast of artists who put the country archetype's unfinished lyrics to music for the new project The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams. Williams used to carry the notebooks in a battered old leather briefcase he always had with him, including at the time of his death just before or on Jan. 1, 1953, on the way to a show in West Virginia. His mother found a cache of material after his death as well. She turned the song fragments over to Williams' publisher and they've sat in a vault for most of the ensuing decades, until producer Mary Martin came up with the idea for breathing life into them.

All participants were challenged to put Williams' words to music. Some added lyrics of their own to flesh out fragments, and all were responsible for their own melody and instrumentation. For the most part, the principles stick close to what they imagined the source material should have sounded like, but each brings something a little different.Continue reading →

Country Music Hall of FamerWillie Nelson, who will turn 78 on April 30, has postponed concert dates through April 23 due to an unspecified illness. (When contacted, Nelson's reps had no additional details about his health.)

Nelson plans to resume his touring schedule on April 26 in Dallas. The shows he's missing, in Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas and South Dakota, will be rescheduled, most likely for the autumn.

There is some good news for Nelson fans, though: His new Here We Go Again album -- a Ray Charles tribute collaboration with Wynton Marsalis and Norah Jones -- is now available. Also, his www.willienelson.com website store is having a special, one-day 420 sale today, with "Pure Willie" and "Legalize It" shirts on sale, and all customers who order $42 or more in merchandise will receive a free, also unspecified gift.

Philadelphia singer-songwriter Amos Lee has found friends and fans in the likes of Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams and Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam — all of whom appear on his new album, Mission Bell. Lee’s ’70s-rooted style skillfully blends rustic folk and suave soul with hints of jazz much like Norah Jones, who’s been a fervent supporter.

Lee heads to Nashville on Friday, April 8 to play the Ryman Auditorium (116 Fifth Ave. N., 889-3060). The show starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are $27.50 and $32.50.

When Jack White plans a Record Store Day celebration, he really pulls out all the stops.

The April 16 shindig at White's Third Man Records is scheduled to feature rock 'n' roll icon Jerry Lee Lewis, Lewis' press folks announced Monday, and fans can expect a White-produced Lewis record to be made during the visit, too.

For the performance/recording, Lewis will be backed by an all-star band: legendary guitarist Steve Cropper and drummer Jim Keltner, with White's Dead Weather/Raconteurs compatriot Jack Lawrence on bass. The recording is expected to go on sale within weeks of the event.

Other special Third Man treats planned for Record Store Day: a new single from Karen Elson, featuring a cover of Lou Reed's "Vicious" backed with Elson original "In Trouble With the Lord" (the release will be on clear vinyl with hand-inserted, peach-colored rose petals locked inside); two White Stripes reissues -- their first release, "Let’s Shake Hands"/"Look Me Over Closely," and second, "Lafayette Blues"/"Sugar Never Tasted So Good"; and the debut offering from Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi's Rome collaboration with Jack White and Norah Jones, "Two Against One" with "Black." (Those Rome tunes will also appear on the full-length, due out May 17.)

Fans will be able to pick up those releases at Third Man and other independent record stores.

Jerry Lee Lewis' show is set to close out Third Man's Record Store Day celebration -- doors open for that show at 4 p.m., the show beginning at 5. Tickets run $30, and are expected to go on sale at noon on Tuesday, April 5 via Third Man's physical location in Nashville (623 7th Ave. S.) and at ThirdManRecords.com.

Third Man's overall Record Store Day festivities begin at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 16.

The much-talked about Rome collaboration between super-producer/Broken Bells and Gnarls Barkley member Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi is due out in May, and the responsible parties -- those two co-conspirators and singers Jack White and Norah Jones -- shared some more detail about the project's origins via video as they ramp up toward its release.

Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Brian Burton, talks about how he came across Nashville-based rock Renaissance Man White -- the two met while Burton was on tour, and kept in touch over the years.

"I always had the intention of there being a male and a female singer (for the Rome project), and so Daniel and I talked about it and we thought Jack would be great, actually," Burton says.

White shares some insight into the different approach he took for creating vocal parts for Rome.

"I rode around in a car listening to the instrumentals, and I had a hand-held recorder and I sang whatever came to mind to all the songs," White says. "And it was the ones that spoke to me more and more as I kept driving around and I (found) phrases that meant something to me and vocal melodies that meant something, and built it up that way."

The video also provides a few snippets of the music, which drew inspiration from classic Italian film music and Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores.

"It's definitely very melancholy," Burton says of the set. "It's an album about love I guess."